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Industry & Manufacturing

The Museum's collections document centuries of remarkable changes in products, manufacturing processes, and the role of industry in American life. In the bargain, they preserve artifacts of great ingenuity, intricacy, and sometimes beauty.

The carding and spinning machinery built by Samuel Slater about 1790 helped establish the New England textile industry. Nylon-manufacturing machinery in the collections helped remake the same industry more than a century later. Machine tools from the 1850s are joined by a machine that produces computer chips. Thousands of patent models document the creativity of American innovators over more than 200 years.

The collections reach far beyond tools and machines. Some 460 episodes of the television series Industry on Parade celebrate American industry in the 1950s. Numerous photographic collections are a reminder of the scale and even the glamour of American industry.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for improvements in the printing press; the invention was granted patent number 4025. The patent details improvements in feed and delivery, in raising the cylinder, and in stopping the bed.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for various improvements on the English presses of Applegath, Napier, and others, especially methods of stopping and reversing the press bed in its travel and of raising the impression cylinders to allow the bed to pass underneath. The invention was granted patent number 2629.

This was the patent for Hoe's Pony press, built specifically for the New York Sun to print 5-6,000 impressions per hour. Richard March Hoe (1812-1886) was the son of Robert Hoe, founder of the original company, which he took over in 1833 after his father's death. Among many outstanding inventions, his most famous press was the Lightning of 1846. He was also known for solicitous management of his employees, for whom he set up set up a free but compulsory apprentice school.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a flatbed cylinder press which was granted patent number 3551. This presses’ tapered bearers were attached to the bed to prevent slurring of the impression at the ends of the form

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a sheet-handling system for printing both sides of a rotary press; the invention was granted patent number 24875. According to Stephen D. Tucker’s History of R. Hoe & Company, this apparatus did not work well and was never brought into use.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary perfecting press which was granted patent number 92050. The patent details improvements to sheet- or web-fed perfecting presses. Instead of being attached to the impression cylinder, the press blanket was an endless web that travelled with the paper and acted as its support. The press was patented in England in 1871 (Patent 1825 to W.E.Newton).

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a flatbed cylinder printing press which was granted patent number 108785. The patent details methods of controlling the motion of the type bed. The model is broken.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary perfecting press which was granted patent number 113769. The patent allows for separating and piling set-off sheets on perfecting presses, and providing easier access to the blankets on the second cylinder.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary printing press which was granted patent number 131217. The invention offers a new system of feeding, carrying, and delivering sheets for rotary perfecting presses. The model consists of the central group of feeding cylinders. According to Stephen D. Tucker’s History of R. Hoe & Company, a press on this plan was capable of printing 8000 sheets per hour and was used successfully by the New York Daily News.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a rotary perfecting printing press which was granted patent number 162651. The press used a web of set-off paper that replaced the usual sheets. The web was used on one side and then the other, repeatedly, allowing the ink time to dry on each side before it was presented again.

This patent model demonstrates an invention for a flatbed printing press; the invention was granted patent number 173295. The patent describes improvements to the movement of the bed, the sheet fly, and the inking table of cylinder presses.